"The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

thomps:"The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

this is the most half-assed attempt at an explanation i've ever seen.

I agree with with the author regarding cost and traffic. It is easier and cheaper to sit home and watch, at the cost of seeing the whole field in action. Same foes for football, but at many of those stadiums you get to watch the game on a very large TV in the stadium.

simplicimus:thomps: "The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

this is the most half-assed attempt at an explanation i've ever seen.

I agree with with the author regarding cost and traffic. It is easier and cheaper to sit home and watch, at the cost of seeing the whole field in action. Same foes for football, but at many of those stadiums you get to watch the game on a very large TV in the stadium.

right but it hasn't gotten easier or cheaper since last year has it? it reminds me of the old yogi berra quote: nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded.

the person is tossing out assumed long-term trends to explain very short-term fluctuations. probably has a long career ahead of him on a financial news channel.

thomps:"The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

thomps:"The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

this is the most half-assed attempt at an explanation i've ever seen.

True, the economy is still sorting itself out but people opting to watch baseball "at home on a big screen?" Baseball is a terrible television product.

How about that run scoring is down across the league? I haven't studied it out, but teams have half the starting lineup with averages under .250 and there are starters hitting under .200.

The cost is a factor too. A decent seat at Yankee Stadium is >$100, with $9 beers and $6 hotdogs and $50-100 parking if you don't want to walk several blocks in the South Bronx on a summer night. Yea, I'll stay home.

We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

henryhill:thomps: "The drop-off in attendance for live sporting events is getting worse," said Lee Igel, a professor of sports management at New York University."You've got a lot of competing factors in this, even bad weather," Igel explained. "But with the economy still sorting itself out, there's the huge cost of going to live events plus fighting through traffic and parking just to get to the games.""And even more important is the experience of watching games in the comfort of your home on a big screen without the hassle at a stadium," Igel said. "That keeps a lot of people away."

this is the most half-assed attempt at an explanation i've ever seen.

Really? Seems pretty concise and truthful.

aside from the economy one (which is nonsensical when comparing this year's attendance to last year's) they are the same excuses that have been given for low attendance in sports since the advent of the color television.

simplicimus:We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

Soccer players don't start sticking anything in their asses until at least high school. Baseball Dad has his kids dipping and shooting up at 12, and over time, that gets expensive.

simplicimus:We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

simplicimus:We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

To compare, what's the cost of making a soccer ball out of a bunch of rags?

There's definitely more youth soccer now than there was when I was in elementary school and I'm only 29.

The MLS has a chicken/egg problem though in that they don't have the money to attract top talent and they're going to have trouble gaining viewership when they're the equivalent of AA and whatever good American players do come up get bought up by European clubs.

DamnYankees:simplicimus: We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

Haven't they been saying this about soccer for 40 years?

Probably. Perhaps it's seen as safer and cheaper that Baseball or Football at the school level.

DeWayne Mann:That difference is more than entirely explained by the Marlins home games. They've drawn 479,232 fewer fans at home than we'd expect from last year's attendance.

Yeah, this. There's no evidence to suggest an overall downtrend across the game. Many teams are still selling out, or coming close to it, for most of their home schedule. Miami had a brand new stadium with big name players last year, then said "F you" to the city and the fans responded. It's got nothing to do with a long term shift from baseball to soccer, or people watching on TV, or cost, or whatever.

dukeblue219:DeWayne Mann: That difference is more than entirely explained by the Marlins home games. They've drawn 479,232 fewer fans at home than we'd expect from last year's attendance.

Yeah, this. There's no evidence to suggest an overall downtrend across the game. Many teams are still selling out, or coming close to it, for most of their home schedule. Miami had a brand new stadium with big name players last year, then said "F you" to the city and the fans responded. It's got nothing to do with a long term shift from baseball to soccer, or people watching on TV, or cost, or whatever.

Some teams are up; other teams are down. Sort of like every other year.

It's worth noting that if every team was drawing EXACTLY as well as they did last year, the numbers would still fail to match up. I don't know if they would be up or down (mostly because I don't care), but they wouldn't be the same.

jaylectricity:DamnYankees: Is that a lot? Attendance is up over 70 million per year now, so this is, like, a 1% drop.

It's a lot because I keep hearing how baseball is doing better than ever.

You got us. Baseball is dying and is going to be canceled next season, and no one will notice, giving a truckload of warm fuzzies to people who think that their preferred sport is The Chosen Pastime and should be played to the exclusion of everything else.

- The last nine baseball seasons (2004-2012) have produced the nine best-attended seasons in the history of Major League Baseball, including four successive record-breaking seasons from 2004-2007. The 2012 attendance total ranks behind only the 2007 (1st), 2008 (2nd), 2006 (3rd) and 2005 (4th) seasons.

DeWayne Mann:Somewhat meaningless; the last 15 baseball seasons (1998 to 2012) have produced the 15 most-games-played seasons in the history of Major League Baseball. I suspect this year will rank up there too.

not meaningless in the context of whether or not mlb is a "dying sport." the fact that they can comfortably increase supply of the product indicates that they are still in a growth mode.

It's nothing that another round of taxpayer funded stadiums wouldn't solve. Or at the very least, a new jumbotron the size of Rhode Island and an elimination of the public's share of parking revenue at the publicly owned facility.

RE: traffic, parking, etc. Yeah, that's going to be a problem as long as professional sports leagues are given anti-trust exemptions or the government looks the other way at anti-competitive actions. A city the size of NYC could support a dozen baseball teams over the metropolitan area. The stadiums would be smaller and each team could only afford one superstar player but it'd be much easier to get to and the prices would be much lower. Keeping the supply of teams artificially restrained has given teams a "too big to lose" power where they can demand taxpayer funded stadiums and then charge whatever they want to the public to see games in the stadium they paid for. But it does keep all the best talent concentrated in clumps so you can be thankful for that... except a team full of megastars doesn't always produce the best results.

Funniest and most out of touch solution I hear often is "move the stadium to 'name of suburb person speaking lives' to make it easy to get to". Yeah, that makes it easy for the people in that particular suburb to get there but makes it twice as hard for people in all the other suburbs spread around the metro area. And the first time they had a hard time getting home because of stadium traffic, suddenly it wouldn't seem like such a great idea after all.

EngineerAU:It's nothing that another round of taxpayer funded stadiums wouldn't solve. Or at the very least, a new jumbotron the size of Rhode Island and an elimination of the public's share of parking revenue at the publicly owned facility.

RE: traffic, parking, etc. Yeah, that's going to be a problem as long as professional sports leagues are given anti-trust exemptions or the government looks the other way at anti-competitive actions. A city the size of NYC could support a dozen baseball teams over the metropolitan area. The stadiums would be smaller and each team could only afford one superstar player but it'd be much easier to get to and the prices would be much lower. Keeping the supply of teams artificially restrained has given teams a "too big to lose" power where they can demand taxpayer funded stadiums and then charge whatever they want to the public to see games in the stadium they paid for. But it does keep all the best talent concentrated in clumps so you can be thankful for that... except a team full of megastars doesn't always produce the best results.

Funniest and most out of touch solution I hear often is "move the stadium to 'name of suburb person speaking lives' to make it easy to get to". Yeah, that makes it easy for the people in that particular suburb to get there but makes it twice as hard for people in all the other suburbs spread around the metro area. And the first time they had a hard time getting home because of stadium traffic, suddenly it wouldn't seem like such a great idea after all.

Well in the old days, I could take the subway to Yankee or Shea Stadiums. No driving hassles, no DWIs, etc. So the only expenses were tickets and beer.

simplicimus:We had a thread a few months ago that posited that the younger generations are growing up playing soccer rather than baseball because soccer equipment costs far less than baseball equipment for a child, resulting in fewer young baseball fans. True or no, I have no idea. I grew up playing stickball, total cost of equipment maybe 50 cents.

The latest fan demographics by sport that I've found (2010) shows that MLS fan base skews pretty young. Fans between the ages of 18-34 are 37.8% of the fan base, the largest for any sport. While for MLB it is the reverse, the 18-34 (28.0%) demo is the smallest part of the fan base and the 50+ set is the largest part of the fan base (43.1%) .